Asamblea constituyente: La experiencia latinoamericana y el actual debate en Chile

Abstract

The figure of the constituent assembly emerges along with constitutionalism and modern democracy in the West. The doctrine has thoroughly developed such institution since a whole generation of constitutions was the product of a particular process of deliberative debate. The sequence of constituent processes taking place in Latin America during the last decades evidences the importance of Constituent Assemblies. Such processes aimed to form what has been called new Latin American constitutionalism, which would put an end to the historical debt towards the indigenous communities and other postponed agents from the constitutional debate. The legitimizing effect of those constituent processes and the constitutional empowerment of the Latin American social movements have influenced other States in the region. One of those is the Chilean case, where in the last years, there has been an intense debate about the Constitution Assembly as a mechanism for the creation of a new Constitutional Charter.